Independent Consolidation supporters celebrate their victory on Besu campus on Wednesday. Picture by Gopal Senapati

Candidates supported by the anti-Left Independent Consolidation scooped up 50 of the 54 seats at stake in the first student election at Bengal Engineering and Science University (Besu) in three years.

Besu registrar Biman Bandopadhyay refused to name any group as the victor — “Candidates aren’t supposed to have political affiliation,” he said — but that didn’t stop the Independent Consolidation from describing the poll outcome as an SFI wipeout.

The anti-Left group has had a stranglehold on the Besu undergraduate students’ union since 1982. In the 2005 election, candidates backed by the group had won 27 of the 40 seats. The number of seats was raised this year to provide for representation of students of new courses.

The Independent Consolidation, which did not contest any of the 22 seats in the post-graduate union, also controls the student unions of Presidency College and Jadavpur University. But the Besu victory this year is probably its sweetest so far.

“The authorities had been trying to oust us and help the SFI wrest the reins of the Besu undergraduate union. The outcome is the student community’s answer to them,” a spokesperson for the Independent Consolidation said.

The SFI camp was silent but their state leadership spoke up for them. Koustav Chatterjee, the general secretary of the SFI’s state committee, accused the Independent Consolidation of using “strong-arm tactics” and “outsiders” to bulldoze its way through the polls. “Trinamul Congress leaders campaigned for the Independent Consolidation on the campus and outside it. The SFI believes in free and fair polls. We are not upset about the results because we know how our rivals won.”

Besu has a history of unrest, with the SFI-Independent Consolidation rivalry often leading to violence. The campus was in turmoil for the better part of 2008, forcing the authorities to shut down the institution more than once and order the boarders out.

The Independent Consolidation claimed that the steps taken to control unrest were “draconian”.

A general council will be set up within 10 days, the Besu registrar said.